Top Clicks

Search the Scripture

The story is told that in 1913 a young 10 year old by the name of Mintie Jane Jervis was walking through the meadow from her house to her great-grandmother’s house in Floyd County, Kentucky. Her parents had told her for some time, “don’t be surprised if you go to visit grandma and she is dead.” But nothing had prepared Mintie for this day.

Mintie (Janie) ran home so fast that she did not even touch the three steps going into her house. “Momma, momma, something is wrong with grandma! Something is wrong with grandma!”

They figured that this day would come. Grandma, Evey Burchett Jervis, was 90 years old, born in 1823, the wife of a Civil War doctor. They were pioneers of this part of the country, a gift from the government for her husbands service. This was the ground where he trained soldiers.

But what they did not understand was that Grandma was not dead. She was very much alive. “Something is wrong with Grandma! I saw here on the front porch waving her hands in the air and crying, ‘Thank you Jesus. How wonderful You are.'”

Dad, George Washington Jervis, was a tall, lanky redhead Church of Christ evangelist. He was very familiar with the group of Baptist that his grandmother had been worshipping with in the local school. He grunted, “Oh, she is just shouting. We don’t do that kind of thing.”

“I want to be just like her when I grow up,” Janie said.

“Well, lost another one,” her dad grunted back. I sure would have loved to have know what he meant by that. What was going on in that county. That same type of thing was going on 100 years earlier in Kentucky from which his church was born out of. What made the change in 100 years?

And become like Grandma she did. Mintie Jane married Gilmer Boehm and at the age of 24 she and her mother-in-law began a church in their home in a West Virginia coal mining camp. The first night they had 8 who showed up. The second week there were so many that people were standing outside on the porch.

That little ten year old was my grandmother, my dad’s mother, and this story was captured on video in 1993 when she was 90 years old, my shouting grandmother. Because of her love for Jesus she is credited for the many pastors, missionaries and church leaders that came out of her family.

John Huss, (Jan Hus) born around 1372, was a religious leader in the area we know today as Czech Republic. When King Richard II married Anne of Bohemia they made a trip to Bohemia where they carried the ideas of a preacher by the name of John Wycliffe. After adopting these ideas he proposed to reform the church in Bohemia just as Wycliffe did in England.

While many of his followers were called Hussites, the more radical followers were called Taborites. The Taborites formed the Bohemian Brethren which later became the Moravian Church. As far as we can tell they were one of the first organized charismatic churches and sent out more missionaries than any other denomination in history.

Because of John Huss’ teachings the church at large excommunicated him in 1411 and condemned him to burn at the stake. On July 6, 1415, they lit the fire around John Huss and as he burnt he prophesied, “In 100 years, God will raise up a man whose calls for reform can not be suppressed.” 102 years later Martin Luther tacked up the 95 theses that began another reformation that still exist today.

When thinking of the great frontier, who associates Daniel Boone with a great move of God. It is reported that in the late 1700’s Daniel Boone invited a Presbyterian preacher Barton Stone to the Cane Ridge Meeting House in Bourbon County, Kentucky. It was here that the Red River revival was experienced. This revival involved Methodist and Baptist who only knew their love for Jesus.

The climax with what happened in August of 1801. It is estimated by military personnel that between 20,000 to 30,000 came to the outdoor camp meeting where multiple preachers stood on stumps throughout the camp, preaching at the same time. The meetings lasted day and night.

Among the multitudes who were saved was James B. Finley. Later he became a Methodist circuit rider. He wrote the following describing the meetings:

“The noise was like the roar of Niagra. The vast sea of human beings seemed to be agitated as if by a storm. I counted seven ministers, all preaching at one time, some on stumps, others in wagons and one standing on a tree which in falling, lodged against another .

Some of the people were singing, others praying, some crying for mercy in the most piteous accents, while others were shouting most vociferously. While witnessing these scenes, a peculiarly-strange sensation such as I had never felt before came over me. My heart beat tumultously, my kneees trembled, my lips quivered and I felt as though I must fall to the ground. A strange supernatural power seemed to pervade the entire mass of mind there collected.

I stepped up on a log where I could nave a better view of the surging sea of humanity. The scene that then presented itself to my mind was indescribable. At one time I saw at least five hundred swept down in a moment as if a battery of a thousand guns had been opened upon then and then immediately followed shrieks and shouts that rent the very heavens.” (Mendel Taylor, Exploring Evangelism, p. 142)

It is said that this camp meeting continued through the week until the food totally ran out for man and animal.

From this movement several pastors determined not to call themselves anything but Christians. There are several groups today who trace their roots back to this event: The Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), the Churches of Christ (non-instrumental), and the Christian Churches (independent).

After learning a trade Jacob Boehm traveled, as was custom, as a itinerant journeymen for three years. The purpose was to make him a finished workman. In his wanderings Jacob fell in with a people called Pietists. In many respects they resembled the Puritans. He was converted among them. The change was so great when he returned home, his language so strange, that his friends could not understand him. His singular experience, his exposure of formal religion, his boldness in reproving sin, raised a storm of persecution. The minister withstood him, and denounced him as a heretic. His answers were so pertinent that his father gave him a severe reprimand. The Church exercised civil as well as ecclesiastical authority, and young Boehm was convicted of heresy, and sentenced to prison. An elder brother was appointed to conduct him to the prison-house. He did not watch his brother closely, and as they were near the line that separated Switzerland from France the prisoner crossed over, and was forever free from his domestic and priestly persecutors.

He journeyed along the banks of the Rhine till he entered the Dukendom of Pfaltz. This was the Palatine bordering on Belgium. From this region were the ancestors of Philip Embury. There young Jacob became acquainted with a people called Mennonites. They took their name from Menno Simon, who was contemporary with Luther. They were a simple-hearted people, and he united with them, and became a lay elder.

Alexander Peden was born in 1626. He died in 1686 and never married. In all Scottish literature he is known as Prophet Peden. He prophesied things about nations that came to pass. He was always running from the law because of the message he preached. He preached that Jesus was the head of the Church and the English Church said that the King was the head of the church. This mask and wig pictured here is what he often wore to evade the soldiers and are on display in a British museum.

He never had a home but had to always be moving around. He always seemed to know how long he could stay at a home before the authorities came after him. He was famous for this.

One night, in his old age, the soldiers were behind him on horseback catching up to him and he cried out to God. He always referred to himself as “poor old Sandy.” He looked up to heaven and said, “Oh Lord, would you just through you cloak over poor old Sandy?” All of a sudden a fog rolled in, covering up the horsemen. It was so thick that the English could not see one another let alone Alexander Peden.

One time he was caught and imprisoned for just over 4 years. There a young girl that looked through his prison cell and mocked him. And Peden told her that she only had a few hours left to live. Within two to three hours she was washed off the island they were on.

A guard, shortly after that, looked through is prison door and mocked him. Peden told him that not long from now the Spirit of the Lord will fall on you and you will change your mind. It was reported that in less than an hour the guard began to weep and was converted.

In 1682 he officiated the wedding a very godly Scottish couple, John Brown and Isabella Weir. John Brown was farmer but very godly, always helping the persecuted pastors and prophets. Following the ceremony he took Isabella aside and told her, “Today, you have gotten a good man. Prize his company highly. For you shall not enjoy him very long. When you least expect it he will come to a bloody end. Always keep a linen burial sheet close by, because you will be needing it.” What a wedding day prophecy. Every day she thanked God for another day she had John Brown and treasured that relationship.

By 1685 they had two children, a baby boy and a girl almost 2 years old. It was the night of April 30, 1685, Alexander Peden came to their house to spend the night. Early in the morning, before the sun was up, he was heard going out the door saying, “Poor woman, a dark misty morning, Poor woman.”

At 6:00 a.m. John was out in his field when a troop of English soldiers was led by John Graham of Claverhouse, came up and arrested him. John Graham has gone down in history as simply “Claverhouse.” He brought John back to his house and asked him, “Will you repent of your conviction the Christ is the head of the church rather than the King of England?”

Standing beside John Brown was his wife, who was holding the baby, and their little girl. And John Brown said, “No, I will not.”

Then Claverhouse said, “Well, then say your prayers for you shall immediately die.”

John Brown dropped to his knees and he began to pray. Then he stood back up and looked down at Isabelle and said, “Isabelle, you see me, shortly, summoned before the court of our Redeemer, to be a witness in his cause. Are you willing that I should be parted from you?”

Isabelle looked into his eyes and said, “Hartley willing.”

He took her into his arms and he kissed her. Then he kissed his baby boy that was in her arms. Then he knelt down beside his two year old girl. He took her by the hand and said, “My sweet child, always put your hand in God’s hand as your guide. And be a comfort to your mother.”

Then he stood up and he looked up to heaven and said, “Blessed be thou oh Holy Spirit who speaketh more comfort to my heart than the voice of my oppressors can speak terror to my ears.”

This enraged Claverhouse and he order six of his soldiers to shoot John Brown on the spot, but the soldiers remained motionless. They would not draw their weapons. They could not kill someone who love his God that much, who loved his wife that much, who was willing to lay down his life for his God and who had no unkind words for his enemies.

Claverhouse drew his own pistol and shot John Brown right through the head. Brown fell crumpled at the feet of his wife.

Isabelle took off her apron and knelt down and rapped his shattered head with it. Claver house asked her, “Well woman, what thinkest thou now of thy husband?”

Isabelle looked up and she said, “I have always thought well of him, but never more than at this moment.

It was now 7:00 a.m. and Alexander Peden was 11 miles away. He was entering the gate of his friend, John Muirhead’s house. He banged on the door and asked the family to gather around the fireplace with him. He knelt down and said, “Oh Lord, Let the blood of Brown be precious in Thy sight. How long before Thou wilt avenge the blood of John Brown.”

Muirhead grabbed him by the arm and asked him, “What are you talking about?”

Peden said, “This morning, just as the sun was rising, I saw a strange thing in the sky. I saw a bright and shining star fall to the earth. Truly this day, the greatest Christian I have ever conversed has fallen. Claverhouse has been at Priesthill this morning and he has shot John Brown dead and his widow, Isabelle, kneels at his corps with no one to speak comfort to her.

Back at Priesthill the soldiers had all gone. Isabelle gets up and she walks into the house and she gets the linen burial sheet that she has reserved for this very day, since the day of her wedding. And she goes over to the body, and with a shattered heart she begins to wrap the body in that linen burial sheet. But her heart was not shattered over wasted days. She made the most of every day with John because God used a man to prepare of this day.

Jeremiah preached that Judah’s captivity would be 70 years, one year for every Sabbath year that they did not allow the land to rest over the past 490 years. Now the 70 years are completed under Cyrus II or Cyrus the Great of Persia.

According to Josephus, when Cyrus made his grand entrance into Babylon after his general had conquered it, the elderly Daniel greets him with an old scroll containing a letter from God, addressing him by name, written 150 years earlier (Isaiah 44:27-45:12). It describes Cyrus, his tactics, and Babylon which was not a major power when Isaiah had written it. Therefore, Cyrus became a believer, although loosely, as reflected in Ezra 1:2-4.

John Knox was the founder of the Presbyterian church. His mentor and teacher was George Wishart, born 1513. He was so recognized as a prophet in his day that the Cardinal, David Beaton, hated him.

George Wishart was the kind of man that he could walk into a town and start preaching from Romans and a crowd would gather and stay for his whole message and many would accept Jesus.

One day he was preaching in the city of Dundee in Scotland and David Beaton had gotten the magistrate to forbid him from preaching Jesus in their city again. Mill, the magistrate, waited for him to stop preaching and then walked up to him and handed him a summons that forbid to preach ever again in Dundee or he would go to jail.

Wishart took off his had and held it in one hand with the summons in the other, looked up into heaven for a few moments and then he looked down at the people.

Then he said, “God as my witness, I never desired your trouble, only your comfort. But rejecting the word of God and the servants of the word of God is no way to get comfort. If it be well with you long after I have left then I am not speaking to by the Sprit of God. But if sudden, unexpected trouble comes upon you, then know that this is the source. It is a judgement of God for your rejection of His ministers and His word and repent that He might remove the judgement.

Wishart stepped down for the scaffold and rode off on his horse to western Scotland. Four days after George Wishart left the city of Dundee one of the severest plagues in the history of that city broke out and starting killing people.

It took a month for the news to reach where Wishart was. Upon hearing the news he headed straight back to the city, dismounted at the east gate, stood in the middle of the gate with infected people on one side and the healthy people on the other. He opened up his bible to Psalm 107:20 and started to preach a sermon on “He sent His word and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions.”

He then stayed among the people, helping them, until the plague was gone.

Another time Wishart was in a city and he received a message from one of his best friends, asking him to come because his friend was in a dire emergency. Wishart and two of his friends hopped on their horses and rode out of the city gate and then he pulled on his horse and stopped him. Then he said, “something is wrong. The Spirit of God is forbidding me to go.” He sat on his horse for a moment and then smiled and said, “I fear that our friend, the Cardinal, has laid a trap for us.” He said, “One day I shall die by his hand, but it will not be this day.”

He went back into the city but his two friends went on just in case Wishart had been wrong. Two miles down the road were 30 armed horsemen waiting to assassinate Wishart.

Finally Beaton did catch Wishart. Months before that God had revealed to him that he would soon die and he began to talk about his death being near.

In fact, if it had not been for Wishart knowing the very night of his death, John Knox would have died too. For John wanted to travel with him that night to the city of Ormiston, but Wishart told him, “One sacrifice will be sufficient for this night. You may not go.”

He was capture that evening. Illegal trials were set up. He was condemned to death, put in prison and on March 1, 1546 they came to his cell at dawn. They tied his hands and hung bags of gunpowder around his body and brought him out to the courtyard of the Cardinal’s palace.

Cardinal Beaton had furnished a room with lavished cushions and refreshments so that he and others could look out this huge window down into the courtyard and watch Wishart be burned at the stake.

So they led Wishart up to the platform and tied him to the stake, put the wood around him and asked him if he had any last words. He said, “Yes, I would like to pray.” He prayed and asked God to forgive all of his accusers. The executioner was so moved by that prayer that he asked Wishart for forgive him. Wishart, after kissing him on the cheek said, “I forgive thee. Now do thine office.” And the executioner lit the fire.

Within a few moments the gunpowder exploded, whirling Wishart’s body around till it faced the window where Cardinal Beaton was sitting. The captain of the guard, who was standing on the platform looked into his eyes and saw that he was still alive and said, “Oh sir, be of good courage.” Wishart said through the flames, “These flames have scorched my body, but they have not daunted my spirit. He who looks at me from yon window with such pride, not many days from now, shall lie in that castle in a shameful death.” And then he died. His last words were a prophecy about Cardinal Beaton.

He died on March 1, 1546. On May 28, 1546, less than three months later, Cardinal David Beaton, at 52 years of age, was murdered in that very castle and his body was hung outside that same window in shame.